It is common to employ one of many existing network management tools to manage computer and/or telecommunications networks. These tools typically run on PC or UNIX workstations. In the telecommunications context, network management tools enable the maintenance, surveillance and administration of the multiple telecommunication devices which make up the network. Tasks performed by these network management tools through a network management interface include alarm monitoring, test and diagnosis of faults, performance monitoring and connection management.
An objective of most network management tools is to provide a centralized view of the network so as to enable the correlation of events and conditions that span network elements and subnetworks. A further objective is to facilitate the management of a network consisting of a non-homogeneous collection of telecommunication devices. Some existing network management tools provide GUI (graphical user interface) access to the users. An example of a data network management tool which provides GUI access to users is HP Open view. This tool and its associated GUI is appropriate for the management of data networks in which a set of relatively simple nodes may be complexly meshed. The nodes are simple in the sense that from the network management perspective, they can be in only one of a very small number of states. This tool and others like it are not appropriate for the management of even simple telecommunications networks which include nodes which are very complex. Telecommunications nodes are complex in the sense that from the network management perspective, they can simultaneously be in one or more of a large number of states.
There exist Bellcore and ISO (International Standards Organization) standards which include OSI (Open Systems Interconnect) standards which specify a set of generic states network objects forming part of a telecommunications network can be in. Network objects are products produced by a variety of different vendors and include nodes, links and shelf based equipment. The intent of the generic states is to allow network objects which are compliant with these standards to be maintainable remotely by non-vendor specific network management tools. These standards provide a textual definition to the states but the graphical representation of the permutations and combinations of these states is left up to network management tool developers. This opens the door to very complex and cluttered visual displays or more commonly to the superimposition of acronym subscripts and superscripts on top of the visual displays to avoid confusion. These standards are meant to be applied to most telecommunication network objects. Prior art network management GUI tools have not incorporated the full OSI and BellCore state models or have failed to do so in a manner which efficiently expresses them in a simple visual language which does not consume excessive space in the windows on a screen. The common approach is for such tools to address only a subset of the aforementioned standards, and to create new arbitrary "meta-states" that represent combinations of states.
The specific ISO standards and Bellcore requirements which are applicable are of course subject to change over time. At this time the relevant ISO standard is : ISO/IEC 10164-2, Information Technology--Open Systems Interconnection--System Management--Part 2, State Management Function (for CCITT Applications) CCITT Rec.X.731 (now ITU-T). The relevant Bellcore requirement is: Generic Requirements GR-1093-CORE, Issue Oct. 1, 1994 & Revision Dec. 1, 1995, Bellcore, Generic State Requirements for Network Elements.